|
Competitive Analysis and Relative
Competitive Assessments
Technology
companies compete aggressively. Understanding
competitors and how they impact the success of a company should be an
important and ongoing part of its operations.
Only by objectively determining the perceptions of a company and its
relative position among its target customers can the extent and
impact of a company’s advantages and disadvantages be monitored.
Competitive advantage begins with knowing what is important to potential
customers. Only by fulfilling
customer requirements in ways which are superior to major competitors can a
company achieve and sustain market leadership. SMG takes a whole
customer view of the products and services being provided. Technology
alone rarely enables the achievement or maintenance of a superior market
position. Rather, a company’s complete offering, matched against the priorities of
its target market and compared with that of its competitors, determines market
leadership.
SMG's Experience with Competitive Analysis and Relative Competitive
Assessments
From its founding
in 1989, SMG has been providing objective and current market input on
competitors to its clients. Frequently,
companies make decisions based on anecdotes, isolated sales situations, and
management experience that is derived from inappropriate markets or is outdated. The most
common
component of our projects is information that has been gathered directly from markets and
we have consistently included client and competitor perceptions and
performance data in our research.
SMG
has undertaken hundreds of engagements that have evaluated the relative potential
and performance of its clients. Competitive
understanding is an area where research and analysis conducted by an
independent consultancy is essential. We have evaluated a wide range of
competitive issues across many products, industries, and geographies
including:
-
Product
functionality and quality
-
Pricing
and discounting practices
-
Sales
channel operations and effectiveness
-
Customer
and technical support competencies
- Competitive
sales and marketing practices
Examples
of our Competitive Analysis and Relative Competitive Competitive Assessment experience
include:
Major
Hardware Company:
The client wanted to update its services offerings by knowing exactly
what its three major competitors were offering and how customers evaluated their
performance.
SMG built a table directly comparing the various services offered and
conducted telephone interviews with hardware support managers at Fortune 500
companies to measure the absolute and relative capabilities and delivery of
services. The
client modified and repositioned its new offerings as a result of the project.
Start-up Messaging Software Vendor:
In support of our client’s
go-to-market strategy development, SMG conducted a preliminary assessment of
the client’s competitive environment. SMG delivered a comprehensive
competitive overview of the client’s targeted market by:
-
Collecting
data from a variety of sources, including Internet-based research,
analyst reports, public financial records, and telephone interviews with
several competitors.
-
Analyzing a variety of market factors, including market share,
capitalization, channel coverage, and growth of the leading
competitors.
- Creating a matrix
of competitive solutions that demonstrated to our client that market
coverage was tight, and that the direct competition would be formidable
for a start-up in this space.
Based
on this competitive feedback and an internal assessment of its available
resources and capabilities, our client repositioned itself by
pursuing an alternative solution addressing a slightly different market
space.
|